Trend Micro Alerts Internet Users of Phony Amazon E-mails

According to the security firm Trend micro, fake newsletters from Amazon have recently become regular e-mails in the inboxes worldwide, as reported by Help Net Security on May 3, 2010.

The e-mails, with the subject line "Amazon.com Deal of the Day", appears to be sent from authentic Amazon e-mail address, and even appearing to be genuine newsletters endorsing products apparently emerging from retail giant Amazon. This shows that the spam e-mail campaign was perhaps quite successful.

However, clicking on the embedded links and images resulted in same potentially malicious website. Though the website cannot be accessed now, it is not at all associated with the original website of Amazon.

Some users, in fact, have been cautious of the spammed e-mails sent from the supposed e-mail subscription from Amazon, as discussed in website's forum. This spam has been a successful social engineering tactic as the spammed e-mails can easily present themselves as legitimate which the users are most likely to click on.

Due to the summer season in some parts of the globe, Trend Micro researchers anticipate the emergence of more such online threats, as Internet users typically browse the websites during summers to seek the perfect summer jobs or search and book shops, vacations, etc. Certainly, cybercriminals will benefit from this heavy traffic of online browsers. The Amazon spam is among the possible ways to attract users to become cybercrime victims.

Experts advised users to follow some easy security tips to evade the chances of being duped by spam e-mails. Firstly, if a user receives a spam e-mail, even though from a reliable organization like Amazon, he must avoid clicking on the links that are provided in the e-mail. The spam e-mail should be immediately deleted. Also, never purchase any product or service from offer in such an e-mail, as doing so will put credit card and personal information at risk.

Best online practice is to operate two e-mail accounts simultaneously. One e-mail account can be restricted to personal communication only, while the other one can be used to subscribe for online services like offered by Amazon or any other retail store. This move will avoid exhibiting the personal e-mail ID of the user and, hence, will avoid them from being exposed to spammers.

Related article: Trend Micro Detects Spam Mail Declaring World War III

» SPAMfighter News - 5/12/2010